-It's the law of the G's.
Each additional G we add to our cellphones
means downloads get faster.
3G to send pictures.
4G, stream to video.
And 5G --
America's carriers say it means improved speed yet again.
So an expensive 5G
phone should feel like upgrading to a racecar.
A 5G versus 4G speed test
should be like this BMW i8 versus a Prius.
No contest, right?
Well, hold on just a minute.
AT&T and T-Mobile say they have nationwide 5G in 2020.
Check out their "full-looking" maps.
Samsung's whole lineup is now 5G-enabled,
and Apple is expected to sell a 5G iPhone soon.
But they're short on details
of what exactly 5G for speed right now.
To see what you actually get out of a 5G phone in 2020,
I've been carrying around six of them with me
everywhere I go in the San Francisco Bay area.
My rig includes a year-old 4G LTE and a new 5G
from each of America's three major carriers.
Then I run simultaneous tests using the Ookla speed-test app.
And for the record, I've pressed this button
more than 4,000 times.
You're welcome.
Network speeds can vary depending on geography,
what phone you use, and even how you hold the phone.
But when you do them enough, the median results can be revealing.
So how does our drag star actually perform?
Let's go to the track.
Ready, set, go.
Our lowly Prius here is going the same speed
and miles per hour
that I recorded in megabits per second on my AT&T 4G phone.
And the BMW i8 is the fancy new 5G phone.
And -- wait, what?
The 4G phone actually holds its own against the 5G.
In my San Francisco testing,
AT&T's nationwide network delivered pretty much
the same median speed of my 5G phone as my 4G one.
There were a few spots
where I was blown away by the 5G speed.
But in places I spent more time, like my house
and along the freeway, the 5G phone was often slower.
Yes, slower.
What about T-Mobile?
Its 5G network showed more improvement,
but it still wasn't even as fast as the 4G on its rivals.
And Verizon's network really is faster,
but only if you can get to it.
Right now, it covers under 1% of America,
so it's not really in the race.
It's not just me.
I swapped results with firms
that run network speed tests nationwide.
None have found a generational improvement
in America's next-generation networks.
According to Opensignal, America's 5G
is the second-slowest in the world right now.
What's going on?
5G marketing is getting ahead of 5G technology.
-AT&T has nationwide 5G? -Yep.
-And that's faster? -Faster.
-The truth is, the tech that AT&T and T-Mobile have used
for their networks, called "low-band 5G," puts
the emphasis on wider coverage rather than faster speed.
And as I discovered, sometimes today's old 4G LTE networks
are able to aggregate more signal
and actually deliver faster downloads.
AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon all say they're working
to improve the speeds on their networks
by adding different tech, called "mid- and high-band 5G."
A 5G phone will someday win the race,
but for most of America,
save your money for when it does.
At least in 2020, buying a 5G phone is a lot
like taking a racecar for a spin and learning
that it's not any faster than your trusty old Prius.